Continuing to ignore the fact that America is facing a literacy crisis, at this stage, is blatant ignorance.
As a current college student, I can confidently say that it never fails to shock me when I come across written work from peers that doesn’t follow simple grammar rules. Like knowing the difference between your and you’re, or to and too. Or even there/their/they’re.
Not only are these mistakes being made by young adults, they’re mistakes being made by the future leaders of America, and it’s incredibly frustrating to think that grammar is something that just doesn’t matter to them, or even worse, wasn’t properly taught to them.
As much as I wish I knew the direct solution to solve this issue, I’m not that gifted. However, if society as a whole begins to recognize it as one, we may have a shot at fixing it. Children need to be able to recognize the importance of reading and the tools that come with it, like critical thinking and being able to analyze information. Implementing stronger school curriculums that encourage reading beyond the third grade and further parent involvement in their child’s reading progress are good places to start, and must be enforced if we want to see true change.
I knew when we shifted to the Chromebook we were on a downward spiral
I can’t entirely blame my peers for their lack of understanding when it comes to literacy, because the foundation of a good, well-rounded reader starts in early childhood development, particularly in school. Reading is something that should be thoroughly encouraged in children, but the truth of the matter is that it’s simply not.
Yes, most children learn how to read, but it stops there, after a while. Students are less able to rely on school to carry them towards proper literacy as it becomes less about learning how to read, and more about reading specific materials in order to learn. It’s not fostered and grown into something more, unless it’s done on the child’s own time. Reading textbook chapters and defining vocab in them is fine and all, but if students can’t figure out the context of the chapter their reading … what good does that do?
And even if children do read on their own time, we’re still, as a society, deprioritizing the strength of the written word. Technology continues to grow, whether it be with the advancements of AI or more social media apps that thrive on short-form content, or even in classrooms themselves. Doing all classwork online is not helping, when assignments can be easily fed into an AI-chatbot and summarized.
I knew when we shifted to the Chromebook we were on a downward spiral. That’s not a real book, man.
If this trend continues, we’re out of luck
According to The National Literacy Institute, as of 2024, around 79% of American adults are literate, which doesn’t seem horrific, but 54% of adults read below a 6th grade level, which is incredibly alarming. Especially considering continuous budget cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, who support literacy in a variety of ways, including adult education and literacy programs, I can only wonder in horror what the rates are soon to plummet to considering parents who don’t read aren’t likely to raise kids who read.
More importantly, literacy rates are at staggering lows for certain age demographics in our youth, and don’t seem to be progressing.
Since the 1970s, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), has tracked the progression of U.S. students in reading and mathematics, in what is referred to as the Long-Term-Trend assessments. Results given are based on the nationally represented samples from students aged 9-13. While they have seen progress in for 9-year-olds, according to the NAEP, in both mathematics and reading, there’s been no change in scores amongst 13-year-old students, as compared to 2023. To me, this isn’t really a surprise as most kids around this age just received their first phone. Both rounds of scores were also lower than pre-pandemic scores in 2020, and scores in reading were not far off from scores in 1971.
Children are struggling with reading and comprehension, and if this trend continues, we will be out of luck with our potential visionaries for the future.
Michigan’s 44th in the country on literacy
Growing up, I was a very avid reader. I read my first chapter book around age 5, and my love for literature hasn’t dwindled in the past 14 years. It’s both startling and upsetting to learn, on the same test provided by the NAEP, that only 14% of 13-year-olds reported that they read for fun. When I was that age, I felt like the only thing I was ever doing was reading.
Books are not being read, which is hard for me to hear, and an even harder concept to grasp. It’s concerning, and efforts should be made by educators and parents alike in order to implement better practices to encourage reading and increase skill levels. Kids need to know how to read, and they need to know how to read well. But instead, as AI use becomes more prevalent, we’ve come to prioritize making shortcuts around in-depth reading, by tasking AI to do the work for us. I don’t need Copilot to write my emails, I don’t need ChatGPT to summarize my articles, and I don’t need Google Gemini to write my documents for me.
And these aren’t excruciatingly hard tasks to complete, but if a person is never quite shown how to do it themselves, or understand why it’s important to do it themselves, why wouldn’t they pawn it off one of the dozens of AI tools out there?
The U.S currently sits at 36th in literacy out of almost 200 countries and territories, ranking below countries like Russia and Finland, while also ranking above Germany and the United Kingdom — while Michigan ranks at 44th in the country.
Sliding downhill with every AI family portrait
As a college student, I’m obviously not immune to the short-form content, like TikTok and Instagram reels, that’s tearing our attention spans to shreds, but acknowledging it is already a step in the right direction. Kids are a lot less likely to pick up a book when the entire world around them, from their siblings, to their parents, to their great-grandparents, are nose-deep in their phones.
With every new AI family portrait posted to Facebook, we’re setting an extremely poor example for our children.
Kids need books, period. Otherwise in another 20 or so years, all of our doctors will have a really hard time prescribing us medications they can’t pronounce the names of.
It won’t be an easy road to get back on, but it’s worth doing. Otherwise, we might as well hand over our futures to the robots without a fight.
Pretty sure someone wrote a book about that once.
Kyla Lawrence is a college student, and a Free Press opinion intern. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it in print or online.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: We’ll all be doomed if children stop reading | Opinion
Reporting by Kyla Lawrence, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Kyla Lawrence, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
